


Tell Me What I Think

by theleaveswant



Category: Flashpoint
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Character, Divorce, F/M, First Time, Friendship, Multi, Queer Het, Toronto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-08
Updated: 2011-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You know why the Boss didn't want you on the team?”</i></p><p><i>Donna frowns and pretends to concentrate on not missing their exit. “Jules was recovered, ready to come back. I was just a placeholder.”</i></p><p><i>“Yeah, mostly, but the reason he didn't ask you to transfer back after Lou . . . It was because he thought we had chemistry, me and you. We were too alike, we got along too well. He was trying to protect me, Sophie, our marriage. He wanted to 'spare me the temptation'.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me What I Think

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly written in December 2010 during the mid-season-three hiatus, AU after "Acceptable Risk".

1.

“I am not that stupid,” Ed says, when Donna leans up next to him at the bar and asks whether he'd like to go someplace quieter.

“Wow.” She blinks. “Pretty sure that's the harshest rejection I've ever received.”

“Shit, I didn't mean it like—I just meant. Jeez.” Ed winces and pinches the bridge of his nose. It's been a long day. Hell, it's been a long year. “You know I'm married, right?”

“Oh, I thought you were separated now? Spike said your wife moved out months ago.”

Ed frowns at the table where Spike and most of the rest of Teams One and Three are excavating a mountain of very good nachos. They're all out tonight because One happened to finish debriefing at around the time that Three, lucky sots, were clocking out without incident, and were invited along to toast the birthday of Three's sergeant. “It was one month ago, and we're not—she didn't 'move out.' She's up at her mother's place until the baby's born, that's all. She needed some space but she's coming back. We're still together.”

“Oh. Right.” Donna's eyes flicker over to the same table. She looks embarrassed and a little nonplussed. “My apologies for the misunderstanding, then. I just assumed . . . You're expecting another child?”

“That's right, early next month.”

“And is Clark staying with you in the meantime, or . . . ?”

“No, he's up there with his grandparents—what's that look about?”

“Nothing, it's just. What your team said, and, well, my wife kinda did the same thing when we were splitting up, and—”

“Sophie and I are not splitting up. Things're just a little more tense than usual with the baby coming. We're working it out.” Ed blinks and jerks his head around to face Donna directly. “Did you say 'wife'? I never knew you were—”

“Married? Well, this was, like, eleven years ago so it wasn't 'marriage', legally, but we called each other 'wife'. Yeah, we were going through some rough times, changing jobs and so on, and she said she needed some space so she went to stay with a friend for a while. We didn't have any kids, but she took our dog, Juno, with her. Looking back I feel like that should have tipped me off, but at the time . . . I didn't know we were over until she came back three weeks later with a truck to clear out the rest of her stuff.” Donna concludes her story with a grimace and turns sincere eyes on Ed. “I'm not saying that's what's happening with you, just whenever people talk about space, about partners moving out . . . that's where my mind goes.”

“That's a hell of a story.”

Donna shrugs and sits back on her bar stool.

“So . . .” Ed looks up at the painted ceiling. He feels like seven kinds of idiot. “You like the ladies, then?”

Donna snorts. “Some of them.”

“Then what . . . ?” Ed waves a hand at the space between them, encompassing his not especially feminine frame.

“It's true, if you look for a pattern in my relationship history, women have been the rule and men the exception. But I have to admit,” Donna pauses, smiles and brushes her fingertips over Ed's scalp, making him shiver, “I have a weakness for shaved heads and strong chins, quite independent of gender.”

“Is that so?” He grins, smoothing away the goosebumps on his forearm. This is flirting. He shouldn't be doing this. It shouldn't be this easy.

“Mm-hmm,” she grins, scraping her thumb against the grain of his stubble. “Although it can be hard to steer, with less to grab on to.”

Ed huffs a laugh and stares at the scuffed surface of the bar. Donna leaves her hand on Ed's head, cupping the back of his skull. Her palm is warm on his skin and he tries very hard not to lean in to the touch. He's pretty sure he succeeds. When the silence gets uncomfortable he licks his lips and swirls his half-empty stout glass. “Did you ever get to see your dog again?”

Donna lifts her hand away and folds the other around it in her lap. “No, I didn't. Erin had her put down three months later.”

Ed's eyebrows reach for the sky and Donna gestures reassuringly.

“Not like that, it wasn't punitive. Juno had a tumour, she was suffering, it was the vet's recommendation and I accept that. I do wish she'd told me before she did it, though. I didn't even know she was sick.”

“That's terrible.”

“Yeah, well. That's what happens when love runs out.”

“She didn't like you being a cop, did she? How busy it kept you.”

“I guess not,” she says, but there's no equivocation in her steady gaze.

“This conversation is getting really depressing.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Eh, not your fault. You know, I'm really starting to envy those guys their nachos right now. You want to see if there's anything left, maybe order another plate if they've licked the first one clean?”

“I'd like that,” Donna smiles lightly, her mannerisms all sunny and collegial again, but she can't resist one more barb as she slides into the booth behind him. “For what it's worth, I highly doubt Sophie will have Clark euthanized without letting you know.”

2.

“Hey!” Donna accepts Ed's hug and returns it, squeezes back when he does. “What's the occasion?”

“Giving these young pups a lesson in Toronto punk history!” Ed whoops at the stage and gestures with his too-full drink in the direction of Jules and Sam, splashing the already well-marinated venue floor. Donna catches the dubious look Sam gives to Jules, and the stifling touch she gives him back.

“That all?” Donna's eyes flicker between the three of them as the crowd eddies around them, and she allows a jostling elbow to push her closer to Ed. “It's just, you look ready to party.” Or like you've already started. “Rough call today?”

“Nah, the call was fine.” Ed swigs his beer and makes a face like it's gone rancid since his last sip. “Clarkie just became a big brother.”

He shoves off against the shoulder of a kid with two-inch tunnels in his earlobes and pushes his way towards the stage.

“Sophie had the baby?” Donna asks Sam, who looks away. Jules rolls her eyes and answers.

“This afternoon. Ed really wanted to be there for her, but I guess it was a quick delivery and . . . Clark called while we were out, left a message at the station but it didn't get through to Winnie. Nobody found out until after we got back to the Barn.”

“Are they okay?”

“So far as I know.”

“Has he been over to see them?”

“No, we clocked out and he dragged us straight here.” Jules swats Sam on the arm and scolds, “You know you can be nice to her now. She didn't steal my place on the team.”

Sam grunts and holds out a hand, which Donna clasps immediately. “My apologies,” he mumbles.

“None needed. I understand where you're coming from. Do you two mind if I stay close, help keep an eye on Ed?” She has to raise her voice and repeat herself after the sudden roar of the audience as tonight's headliners take the stage.

“Not at all,” Jules smiles. “Happy for the coverage.”

“Cheers.” She salutes them with her plastic cup and fights her way through the throng looking for Ed. He's harder to spot here than in some crowds, given the concentration of naked heads and black shirts, but she manages to squeeze in next to him.

“Eyes on subject,” she yells into his ear, and he snorts.

“What are you doing here?”

“What?”

“Did somebody call you?”

Donna shakes her head. “Went to school with a guy in the last opener, liked his band's YouTube videos. Who'd call me?”

“Never mind. You want a drink?”

“Got one, thanks.” She gives her ears a moment to adjust to the escalation in volume when the band launch into their first song. “So who does Clark get to be a big brother to?”

Ed laughs, and there is real joy there, even alongside the bitterness. “Izzie. Isadora Megan.”

“Nice name. You met her yet?”

He shakes his head. “Sophie doesn't want me there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She didn't call me from the hospital.”

“You were on a call, weren't you?”

“I coulda left. Greg, the team, they had it under control. I coulda left.”

“I asked Jules, she said it was a quick labour.”

“Quick compared to Clark, it still took four hours.” He slugs back another mouthful of beer. “I should have been there. She didn't ask.”

“Tell me about the call, then.” Donna does her best to distract him, keep him talking, get him on her schedule. Ed obviously knows she's trying to de-escalate him, but he plays along and some of the tension goes out of his shoulders as he tells her about Greg talking down a married couple in their sixties, who'd finally gotten so sick of one another after forty years together that they both decided only one of them would leave the apartment alive, and how Wordy's stealth entrance was ruined by the barking of an astute West Highland Terrier, and how it all worked out alright in the end. By the end of the story he's hoarse and content to let her stand next to him, eyes on the stage, elbows brushing occasionally. When Sam comes over to join them, he gives Donna a grateful nod.

Donna switches to water after that first rye and coke. Ed doesn't, but he looks less like he's planning to race the bottle to the bottom and smash it over the head of anyone standing between him and the next one than he did when she got there. By the time the band have flipped off the audience for the last time and the die-hard hollerers have finally given up hope of a fourth encore, he's loose and expansive, tousling Sam's hair and pulling Jules in tight under his arm. He's less handsy with Donna, but awkwardly so: keeps reaching out towards her and then drawing back with a twitch like she's giving off static shocks. Together the three of them steer him over to the wall by the coat check, and he closes his eyes and smiles, head tilted back against the wall like it's the world's comfiest pillow.

Jules extricates herself from Ed's grasp and puts her hand on Sam's shoulder, leaning close to his probably ringing ear while Donna hands over her ticket. “He's obviously not driving home.”

“You trust him not to get in trouble if we put him in a cab?”

“Any other day . . . I'd be more comfortable driving him myself but with your bike in the back there's no room.”

“So take the bike out and give me your house key. I'll ride over and wait for you there.”

Jules looks at Sam like she's taken aback by his effrontery but breaks into a laugh when he grins at her complacently. Donna fights the urge to tell them to get a room and instead charitably opts to remove the impediment to their doing so.

“I'll drive Ed home,” she offers as shakes her hair out over the back of her coat.

“Do you have a car here?”

“No, I was planning to transit, but I can take his car and get a cab home from there. He's still in that same house in the Beaches, right?”

“Yeah, same place,” Sam says. “You know you don't have to do this, I'm happy to take him if you'd rather just head home.”

“I stopped drinking earlier than you did. It's fine, I've got him. You two enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“You're sure you don't mind—” Sam starts to protest again but Ed's voice rumbles up from where he's still leaning, eyes shut, against the wall.

“It's alright, Constable Braddock. Constable Sabine's got me. You go give Constable Callaghan nice orgasms now.”

“Thought you were asleep,” Jules says, at the same time that Sam asks, “Is that an order?”

“It is. I'm not.” To demonstrate, Ed opens his red eyes wide and blinks in the glare of the straggler-chasing house lights. He fishes around in his pockets for his coat check ticket, which he hands to the skinny girl behind the counter, and keys, which he hands to Donna.

Jules and Sam follow them out to Ed's SUV and wait until Ed's safely buckled into the passenger seat before giving Donna a clap on the arm (Sam) and a hug (Jules) and vanishing around the corner.

“We going back to your place?” Ed asks when Donna climbs into the driver's seat. He fidgets a little with his seat belt. His speech seems more slurred now that his teammates have left.

“No. I'm driving you home, remember?” Her breath fogs a little in the cold.

“Thought maybe the plan changed.”

“Nope.” Donna buckles herself in and starts the car.

“Okiedoke,” Ed mutters and reaches for the radio, then settles back into his seat with a sigh. Margo Timmins' purr erupts from the speakers, supported by mandolins, and Donna twists the volume knob back a quarter-turn.

She waits for the vocals to give way to electric guitar before she speaks. “You know, this was one of my nicknames back in Undercover.”

“What, 'Cheap'?”

“No,” she laughs. “The Cowboy Junkie. I had this old pair of tan walking boots I used to wear every day. They're trashed now; I started picking the stitching out to sell the wired act.”

“Hm,” he says. “I bet you look delicious in cowboy boots.”

Donna glances at him sideways but can't tell if he's kidding. She watches the road, and the next sound either of them makes is Ed mumbling along with the last line, lips moving in perfect synch.

“Your body for my soul, fair swap, 'cause cheap is how I feel—I take everything for granted,” Ed declares, loud and sharp as the song fades out. “I squander opportunities. I am a squanderer. I squandered my hair,” he says, scrubbing at his bare scalp, “before it started thinning, when it made a difference; I shaved it off then too half the time.”

“Some people like shaved heads,” Donna says, because she's not sure how to tackle the more general statement.

“Yeah, you said that, at Sneak's that time. I squandered that opportunity.” He turns his head to look at her and his eyes are serious. “You know why the Boss didn't want you on the team?”

Donna frowns and pretends to concentrate on not missing their exit. “Jules was recovered, ready to come back. I was just a placeholder.”

“Yeah, mostly, but the reason he didn't ask you to transfer back after Lou . . . It was because he thought we had chemistry, me and you. We were too alike, we got along too well. He was trying to protect me, Sophie, our marriage. He wanted to 'spare me the temptation'.”

“He told you that?”

Ed nods. “We had a big fight, after Soph and Clark . . . He asked me if I'd ever cheated, and I never did, but he said . . . Greg said . . .”

“He said you looked like you wanted to, with me.”

Another nod. “Which is bullshit, I think, because it never really occurred to me until he said it, but.”

“Is this why you looked so panicked when I asked you out that time?”

“Probably.” He turns his head away again, looks out the window. “You can turn here, come up from the other end of the block. Street's one way, the other way.”

Donna does as he says, doesn't talk again until she's pulled into his driveway and killed the ignition. “You never thought about it before the fight with the Boss, but after that you did.”

“A little,” he says. “Maybe a lot.”

Donna bites her inner lip and holds up his key ring. “Front door?”

Ed points and Donna gets out of the car. When she shuts the door Ed is fumbling with his seat belt. He frees himself and climbs out, leaning on the door for a moment to look up at the sky, clearer here than downtown, before he follows her up the front steps.

The inside of the house is pitch black at first, and Donna pauses just inside the door while Ed disables the alarm system and hangs up his coat, waiting for her eyes to adjust, waiting for Ed to pass her on his staggering way to bed or at least the couch. Instead she feels his weight press in behind her, his hands on her shoulders, one rough finger tracing a sliver of skin between her scarf and the open collar of her jacket. He nuzzles at her temple and his sour breath is warm on her cheek. She can feel the reverberation in her bones when he speaks.

“Come upstairs with me.”

“No,” she says.

“Why not?”

“I—won't.” Wants to say 'can't', but that's a lie, she knows she could. Five years ago she probably would have.

“But what you said before . . .” Ed comes around to stand in front of her, and that's easier than having him warm behind her, out of sight and looming larger than life, but harder because it makes him human, real.

“You never cheated on Sophie, remember? You want to keep saying that with a clear conscience, you have to talk things over with her. You and her aren't done, not yet, and I'm not getting in the way of you two finding your own solution.”

“Right.” Ed nods slowly. “You're right.” He strokes his hands down the outside of her arms, then yawns into his wrist. “Come on,” he says, stepping back toward the stairs and tugging gently on her sleeve.

“I just told you—”

“I heard you. You can sleep in Clark's room.” He lets go of her coat. “I promise, I won't bother you. I'll prob'ly pass out as soon as my knees hit the mattress. Please? It's late, you're here already, this house is so empty, just . . . stay.”

He waits there, looking at her with sleepy drunken puppy dog eyes, until she nods grudgingly and stoops to unlace her boots. Ed kicks off his own and leaves them in middle of the floor, then disappears into the kitchen to guzzle a couple glasses of water. At the top of the stairs he points out Clark's room, bathroom, and towel closet, before shambling down the hall to the master suite. Donna skims her fingers along the walls until she finds the bathroom light switch, then looks up at the sound of her name. Ed is leaning against the frame of his bedroom doorway, a barely discernible silhouette backlit by curtain-diffused street light.

“Sophie's so young. Almost eight years younger than me, but when we met she felt—it felt like it was the other way around. We got married and I tried to grow up for her, and I know some ways I did but others . . . Parts of me, it's like they're stuck, frozen, still just a punk kid barely knows his ass from his elbow. Izzie was gonna be my second chance.” He pushes off from the frame, scratches an armpit. “I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.”

“Go to sleep, Ed. You'll feel better in the morning.” This is probably a lie, but what else do you tell someone whose requests you can't fulfill?

“Sweet dreams, Donna Sabine.”

Inside the bathroom Donna runs the tap, rinses her mouth with a palmful of cold water and splashes more on her face. She stares at herself in the towel-streaked mirror for the length of a slow exhale before using the toilet and crossing the hall to Ed's son's room when she's done.

She shuts the door and strips off her jeans, peels her bra off under her shirt and climbs into bed in her shirt, socks and underwear. There's a cello stand in the corner but no cello, and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. She counts back from a hundred, trying not to estimate the number of paces from here to where Ed is probably already asleep.

Donna wakes before the alarm on her cell phone. She can hear Ed snoring from down the hall. She dresses quietly and heads downstairs. Brews a pot of coffee and helps herself to a Tim Hortons travel mug from the dish rack. She leaves a note next to the remainder of the pot on a grease-stained paper bag: _Thanks for bed and coffee. Will leave mug @ the Barn for you. Hope your hangover's not too bad. Talk to Greg and go meet your daughter; sequence up to you but do both today. XO, Donna_

3.

“So this is a house cooling party,” Leah says as she follows Donna through the main floor and out onto the back patio.

“It is indeed,” Ed says, flipping his sunglasses up onto his forehead and drawing Leah in for a hug. “I figure, what's the point of all the work I'm doing staging this place to sell, all the fix-it shit, if I don't get the chance to enjoy it first in the company of my friends?”

“Excuse me,” Donna says, “all the work _you're_ doing?”

“Well, I've had some help.”

Wordy coughs pointedly.

“Okay, fine. The work me and my beautiful and talented assistants are doing.”

“Better.” Donna smirks.

Jules and Sam have been at the house most of the day, cleaning, painting and primping. Donna was here for part of the afternoon too before she left to pick up Leah and the propane tank she's just helped Wordy hook up to the barbecue. Wordy, Greg and Spike have all been by at some point in the last week to help with one project or another, and Winnie sewed the new living room curtains and two matching throw pillows, so it's pretty much a communal effort at this point. Ed's never felt more at home here, which sucks because he knows he'll be leaving as soon as the property sells and he hopes that won't take too long. Ah well, the new owners will probably change everything anyway.

“So who else is coming?” Leah asks, helping Ed to transport fruit and veggie trays from the kitchen to the patio.

“Well, Jules and Sam are already here, finishing the re-do on Clark's old room. I think the Boss is up there too. Wordy and Donna you saw. Spike's on his way over once he's done his weekly visit with the Youngs; he's supposed to stop at the Beer Store on his way. Roy, at some point. Few other folks from the SRU: Winnie, Kira, George. Then after dinner a bunch of us are meeting Shelley and the girls down Ashbridges Bay for the fireworks; you're welcome to come along for that too.”

“Will Sophie and the kids be stopping by at all?”

“Nah, they're up in cottage country. Hey Wordy, how's that grill coming along?”

“Just a second,” Wordy says, tinkering with the gas flow before he lights her up. “Fire in the hole.”

“Awesome.” Ed leads Leah back inside. “Opening weekend at Soph's family's cabin. Besides, today is about my other family.”

“Aww, Edward,” Greg says, cresting the top of the basement stairs with a milk crate full of old records in his arms. “I kinda like you too.”

“Your sarcastic tone does not deceive me,” Ed grins back. “Don't you think it's a little early in the day for vinyl?”

“As long as it's not _Hair of the Dog_.”

Ed freezes in the kitchen with a cookie sheet covered in hand-formed hamburgers on wax paper in his hands, sure he's forgetting something but not sure what it is. Leah snaps him out of it by asking if there's anything she can do to help.

“Yeah.” He gestures with his elbow to a pair of scissors on the counter. “You can go into the garden and cut some more dill and chives and stuff.”

“How much?”

Ed shrugs and shoulders his way outside. “All of it? My goal is to eat every plant out here before the new owners take possession. They may take my house, but they will never take Sophie's garden!”

“Pretty sure foxgloves are poisonous, Eddy,” Greg says from the doorway, eyes on the record sleeve in his hands.

Ed laughs and almost drops the meat but Wordy saves him, again. He turns a stern face on Greg. “No more Guess Who! I'm cutting you off. Someone please keep this man away from my record player?”

Their banter is interrupted by Spike's arrival at the side gate with a stack of ancient plastic storage containers wedged under his chin. “So I didn't make it to the the beer place yet, but there was no room on the bike. This is all from Germaine, by the way; we got chicken, saltfish, callaloo—”

“Did you put her up to this?” Ed asks as he helps Spike with his burden.

“No, I didn't put her up to this. I just told her about the party. She's Lou's mom, you think she's not going to go out of her way to support his team?”

If Ed's not comfortable with the way Spike's still using the present tense to refer to Lou, he's smart enough to know now's not the time to pursue it. “Remind me to write her a real nice thank you card for when you take back the dishes.”

“Forget the card, just take them back yourself. She misses you guys too.”

Ed licks his lips. The possibility had never even occurred to him. He's spared further recriminations by the ringing of his phone (“Yeah? Hi, Kira. Sure, the more the merrier. Uhm . . . I've got half a pack of soy dogs from when Clark was here last weekend, will that work? No, no trouble. Wordy's just getting started, I'll ask him to set a corner aside now before he starts splashing the whole grill with panda blood. See you soon. Bye.”) and then Roy's at the door with a potted cactus (the customary Lane clan bachelor gift) and then there's food and Spike raising a toast (“To Queen Victoria, long may She continue to be dead!”) and Jules and Leah dancing on the patio, and that's pretty much how it goes until the sun starts to descend over Mississauga and Ed starts feeling over-peopled.

He retreats to the the top of the stairs, around the bend above the landing, and sits there listening to the happy chatter from below. He looks up at a creak on the stairs and there's Donna, hands in her pockets, stepping onto the landing. She pokes the bare sole of his outstretched foot with her toe.

“Hey there,” he says. “Enjoying the party?”

“Yeah, it's good. How're you doing?”

He shrugs and gestures for her to sit next to him, shuffling over a bit to give her room. “C'mere. I'm good, I just needed to step away for a bit of quiet.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I'm glad you're here, though. I'm glad you and Jules have become such good friends the past few months, and I'm glad she invited you to help out.”

Donna laughs softly and looks at her hands, rubbing at a smear of paint on her knuckle. “So am I.”

“It's been a while, hasn't it, since you and I had the chance to talk. I don't think we've had even a minute alone together since . . .”

“Since the night your daughter was born and you made a drunken pass at me?”

“I did, didn't I?” He licks his teeth. “Somewhere around then, yeah, although in my defense you did make a sober pass at me first. Anyway, how are you? How's life on Team Three?”

“It's good, we're getting along well. I like it there, especially now that Leah's moved over. Not to say that you guys ever picked on me for being female or whatever, but it's nice not to be 'the girl' anymore, y'know? Not to feel like such a token. I can only imagine what Jules went through back when she was the only woman in the field.”

“Hmm. Good to hear you're settled in there.”

“Well, as settled as I'll let myself get, anyway. I've learned not to count on things staying the way they are for very long.”

Ed snorts. “That's a good lesson. One I kind of forgot for a while there.”

Donna looks at him with a crinkle in her forehead. “How are you doing with all this, by the way? I've been hearing reports from other people, of course, but I'd like to get the story from you.”

Ed sighs and studies the texture of the wall opposite their perch. He owes her a better answer than the 'fines' and 'oh, you knows' that he usually uses to forestall having to talk, or think, too much about it.

“Right now, I'm actually feeling pretty positive. I mean, I'm not thrilled with not seeing my kids whenever I want to, and Soph, this house, this family has been such a part of my life for so long. Much more than Soph wants to give me credit for. It's so much of who I am. Losing all that feels . . .” Like I don't know how to be me, anymore. “It's a lot to process. But, at the same time,” Ed says, and he pats a hand on Donna's knee. It's supposed to be casual, companionable. “I don't entirely regret it all, either. I'm learning from having to plan things in advance, now. I've stopped taking things for granted so much. Like instead of just relying on my family to be there when I get home, I have to work out a time and a place to see them. I have to consciously choose to be there, and that means when I'm there, I'm all there. And then it spills over into the rest of my life, so when I set this time aside for my kids, that means I have to find another time for this other thing, and when I'm there I'm less distracted. I'm getting more, I dunno, compartmentalized?”

“You're getting better at being present,” Donna suggests, and it sounds a little woo-woo but also kinda nice.

“Maybe. I dunno. The kids are amazing, of course. Clark's still a complete alien to me, but that's part of what makes him so amazing—the things he thinks of, the things he makes me think of. He decided to go vegetarian before Christmas so at the time I thought it was just to confuse his grandparents but he's kept up with it. Izzie's incredible, the way she smiles at you . . . of course she looks just like me, but we're hoping that's a phase she'll grow out of.”

“It's a good look on a baby.”

“Only on a baby. And Soph . . . I still love her, y'know? I love her compassion and her sense of humour and I love her for being the mother of my children, but I don't think we're ever going to be able to live in the same house again.” He scratches the edge of his thumb against the bare skin of her bent knee, above the hem of her army surplus cargo shorts. “I feel like I ought to thank you.”

“What for?”

“For being you. For being there. For not letting me fuck things up any worse than I already had.”

“Ah,” Donna grins wryly at the floor. “Well, if we're doing the confiding thing, I should admit that was a bit of a growth moment for me too. I've been a little too good at making bad choices.”

Ed's not sure what to say to that. Downstairs, Roy asks Wordy what time the fireworks start.

“I meant that about thanking you,” Ed says eventually. “I don't think I could have dealt with all this without that stuff you said last fall. I couldn't let go of what I had with Sophie until I knew there was something else out there.”

Donna's eyes narrow skeptically. “Are you calling me your safety net? Your guaranteed rebound?”

“No, not like that.” Ed scratches his cheek. “Talking to you reminded me that my choices weren't just Sophie or solitude, sure, but it's more than that. It's, when Sophie finally out and told me that it wasn't working for her and that she didn't want to come home, I accepted that easier than I thought I would. I was able to do that because of you, because it wasn't fair for me to spend months struggling to save something already beyond retrieval. I was able to let go and concentrate on changing to be a better father for Clark and Izzie, instead of fighting to win Sophie back or show her she was wrong about me. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't know you were waiting.”

Donna snorts. “You must be some hot shit to think that highly of yourself.”

“Excuse me?” Ed pulls his knees up, bristling defensively at the edge of venom in her voice.

“You really think I've been waiting around for you like some princess in a tower, crying myself to sleep every night?”

“What—of course not. Donna, I fully believe, no, I _know_ you're capable not only of breaking out of any tower anyone tries to stick you in but of slaying dragons and saving entire kingdoms if you feel like it, without anybody's help. I never asked or expected you to wait around for me. Just . . . there's something here, isn't there? I'm not wrong about that?”

Donna nods, slowly.

“Right. So . . .” He laughs suddenly and drops his weight forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking up at her over his shoulder. “I can't believe I'm saying this, I feel like a fucking teenager. I like you, Donna Sabine. I've liked you for a long time. One of the reasons I fought so hard to have you on my team, apart from my absolute confidence in your abilities, was because I liked having you around and I wanted to spend more time with you. This was even before Greg got me thinking about—y'know. I just like being near you.”

“I like you, too,” Donna smiles, slowly. It's a very pleasant sight. Ed sits back upright to get a closer look at it. “It never occurred to you to spend time with me outside of work once I switched teams?”

“To my chagrin, it did not. Though honestly, if it had, I'd probably have been out of this house a lot sooner and under less amicable circumstances.”

“Right. Wouldn't have wanted that.”

Ed sighs and looks up at the ceiling. Donna bumps her shoulder into his and lets her weight rest there. Ed pushes back, gentle, shifting his centre of gravity towards her. He nuzzles the top of her head, inhaling the smell of her hair, and she tilts her face up to his. His lips part and she leans a little closer, and then Sam's voice drifts up from downstairs.

“Do you think Ed'll mind if we open one of these bottles of Scotch?”

“Excuse me,” Ed murmurs, and half-stands to peer around the corner of the landing. “Which one?”

“Oops.” They can hear others laughing below when Sam steps into view, a bottle presented for inspection.

“Save me three fingers,” Ed says, “and don't touch the one behind it.”

He turns back to Donna. “You mind taking this someplace a little more private?”

“There are sixteen people downstairs, most of them cops. You think any of them aren't going to guess at what we're up to if we disappear any longer?”

Ed laughs at the sudden jump in volume of the music downstairs. “I think they already have guessed, and will be sorely disappointed if we prove them wrong.”

“So?” Donna shrugs. “Let them be. Or do you always do everything people expect of you?”

“No, I don't,” Ed tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “I just didn't want to squander another—”

Donna's mouth is on his then, her palm on his cheek, and Ed forgets what he was trying to say, completely distracted by the warmth of her lips.

“You actually bought that?” Donna chuckles when she breaks away. She pulls Ed onto the steps with her and together they manage to stumble up the stairs and into the hallway between kisses.

“What can I say, I'm a trusting soul.”

With his arms wrapped around her, crushing her body tight against his and feeling her warm in his grasp, Ed totters back towards Clark's old room, forgetting the drop sheets on the floor, the smell of fresh paint and the tape around the trim, until Donna tenses her legs and springs up into his arms, gripping his hips with her thighs. Ed laughs into her mouth and staggers back, reaching out blindly for support. His back smacks into the wall and she releases her hold, sliding down until her feet touch the ground. Ed follows her mouth down and keeps going, wrapping a hand in her ponytail and pulling her head back so he can kiss his way down her neck to her collarbone. Donna's hands come up to caress his head, and he squirms into the touch like a cat.

He spins them around with a growl so that it's Donna with her back against the wall, their legs interlaced, her head cushioned by his hand in her hair, knocking askew the framed photos of stunning Algonquian vistas. He pulls back far enough to look down at her face, blinking in the dim dusk hallway light.

“Hello,” he says stupidly.

“Hi,” she answers with a half-smile, drawing her foot up his bare calf to the back of his knee, and her voice is rough and breathy.

“Fuck,” Ed murmurs, and dives in for another kiss, drinking in her touch like she's the first oasis he's found in miles. He trips backwards again, pulling her with him to the door of his bedroom but once inside he hesitates. Unable to collapse with Donna on the bed he shared with Sophie, he falls to his knees on the carpet, nuzzling his face into her abdomen.

Donna hums and pets his stubbled scalp, squeezes the tight muscles at the back of his neck. Ed wraps one hand around her thigh to grope her ass and uses the other to push up the front of her tank top so that he can kiss her belly and her hip bones. He nips at the flesh beside her navel and she moans and slides down to the floor with him, peeling her shirt off as she goes. She starts to help him with his but stops to lean into his touch when he caresses her breasts through her bra. “Nice,” he says.

“Thank you.” She yanks his t-shirt up over his head, then scratches her fingernails lightly down his chest. “Not too bad yourself.”

He smirks and tugs the cup of her bra down on one side to expose her nipple and rolls it under his thumb; she responds by pinching one of his and twisting it until he grunts.

“This is all happening a little faster than I expected,” he says when Donna starts unbuckling his belt, then hurries to add, “that's not a complaint!”

She laughs and palms his hard-on through his shorts, making his eyelids flutter, before she reaches for the buttons on his fly. “Hey, six years of build up . . .”

“Six years?” He frowns but is not deterred from pushing her bra strap down her shoulder and kissing the hollow of her neck.

“Since the first time I met you, back when I was in Vice.”

“Right, that awards din—ngh.” He bites her shoulder when she reaches into his underwear and wraps her fingers around his cock. “Seriously though, you've been crushing on me for six years?”

“I thought you were hot. Didn't really turn into a crush until I was competing for a spot on your team.”

“Boy, do I feel late to the party.”

“You're here now, aren't you?” She says, then gasps when he tears open the snaps on her shorts.

“Yeah.” He wraps his other arm around her back and lets her lean her forehead on his sternum while he cups his fingers over her wet panties. “I'm here now.”

Donna pushes Ed back and he goes with it, stretching out on the floor. She straddles his crotch and looks down at him. “What do you want to do?”

Ed licks his lips, hands squeezing her thighs through her cargos. He could say 'whatever you want' and mean it honestly, but the way she's looking at him he's pretty sure that's not all she wants to hear. That teenage feeling is back, worse than ever, which is honestly kinda bizarre. He thinks maybe it's because she's the oldest person he's fooled around with (older than Sophie and all the 'older women' he knew before he met her) and he's intimidated by her perceived experience, but what the hell—he knows his way around the block now too.

He has to answer her question.

“I've thought about this a lot, the last few months. Things I'd like to do to you, like you to do to me. All that time I had to make up details from my imagination . . . now I want to know. I want to see you.” He tugs at her bra and she reaches behind her for the clasp to take it off. He cups her breasts in his palms, squeezes experimentally. “And I want to taste you. Christ, Donna, can I taste you?”

She gives this little twitch with her hips, rubbing her snatch against his cock through too many layers of clothing and then lifts up and off him. She shoves her shorts and panties down to her knees and kicks one leg free of them as she crawls, breasts grazing his chest along the way, up his body to straddle his face. Ed takes a deep breath, and a good look, before tilting his chin up so that he can reach her clit with his tongue. She twitches and purrs and it turns out that she doesn't need anything to grab on to after all; she can steer with her knees.

Ed tries to take his time. Donna doesn't make it easy, rolling her hips and grinding her pussy into his face. He finally has to wrap his forearms around her thighs, fingers dug hard into muscle, and lift her away far enough to look up at her and snarl, “ _Let_ me.”

She nods, relaxes in his grip and allows him to explore at his own pace, licking and slurping, at least for a little while before she starts rocking her hips again and breathing hard. Ed holds his rhythm, looking up the curve of her body past her breasts to watch her tip her face forward, close her eyes and bite her lip, until she says “Suck my clit now. Hard.” He does and she comes with a shuddering “Oh, fuck” and tremor that starts in her thighs and ripples right up her spine. She pushes off a bit and he takes the cue to ease up, until she says “Again,” and this time she actually cries out.

She climbs off him and lies on her side next to him, leaning up to lick her own juice from his soaked cheek. Her skin is flushed and shimmering with sweat. “You finished?” he asks.

Donna shakes her head. “You?”

“Well . . .” he says, though she's already tiptoeing her fingers down his stomach to his boxers.

There's a damp spot in the hair on his belly from where he was leaking with arousal while he ate her out. She smears the puddle with her thumb before she pushes his boxers down and wraps her fingers around his cock. Her grip is different from Sophie's, her hands calloused in different places, and it's better only insofar as it's the sensation he's experiencing _right now_.

“Okay if I taste you, too?”

Ed kisses the elbow she's propped up on, trying to think of a more dignified answer than 'SHIT YES'. He settles for “Okay is to you tasting me as a shot glass to the Atlantic,” which seems to please her because she hums as she kisses her way down his chest, wriggling across the carpet to straddle one of his legs, and then there's _heat_ and _wet_ and a fair probability that he mutters something that would make a sailor blush. She's less careful with her teeth than he's used to, but damn, he really doesn't object. He wouldn't object either if she wanted to finish him off like this, but he cracks an eye open when he hears the rustling and sees Donna fishing a condom out of the pocket of her shorts. She presses the packet into his hand but doesn't let up her oral attentions for another few heavenly licks.

“I don't have much practice putting these things on other people,” she explains.

“Other—ngh.” Ed tips his head back and blinks at the baseboard heater, the condom clenched tightly in his fist.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing, I just got a mental image. Fuck, and I thought you looked good in a climbing harness.” He discards the wrapper and gets the rubber into position.

“You're into that?”

“What?” Ed looks up at her, reaches for a breast and pulls on it with his free hand, making her shift up so he can bring her nipple to his lips and pinch it between his teeth, then release it far enough to speak with his lips brushing her skin. “You think, just 'cause I've been monogamous for almost twenty years, all I know is vanilla missionary?”

“Ah, no, you've put that fear to rest.” She gasps when he bites down harder and scratches his nails across her back at the same time, and her measured speech seems to take some effort. “It's just, you project this kind of 'alpha macho' vibe, I wasn't sure . . .”

“Donna, if I thought getting fucked made somebody weak, I'd never be able to do this,” Ed growls. He impresses himself by rolling the condom on one-handed, a move he hasn't practiced in decades, then flips them over so he's on top of her, pinning her to the carpet with her legs splayed wide apart as he lines up and sinks in. Her arms, when she lands, go above her head and cross at the wrists, suntanned skin beckoning Ed to grab hold.

He slams into her as roughly as she's been telling him she likes it, and damn if she doesn't grunt and shove back just as hard. Her wrists twist a little in his grasp but not like she's trying to get away, more like she relishes the extra friction. Ed does too, and he squeezes tighter even as he gives up trying to run the fuck and lets her angle him where she wants him with her heels on his hips.

He's close to the end of his control and ready to ask for a change of position when Donna says “Over,” and Ed obligingly flips back onto his back. Her hands, freed from his hold, come to his face; the left gripping the soft-rough fuzzy skin on the crown of his head with her fingerpads while the right caresses his cheek, then slides to press two fingers against his lips. He opens his mouth to let them in, then sucks them hard, licking and nibbling. Donna shudders and squeezes around his cock and Ed lets go, slurping on her fingers at the same time as he spends inside her.

Panting and sweaty, Ed stretches his jaw after Donna's fingers slip from his mouth and draw a cold-spit line down his chin and chest. She eases herself off his cock and drops down at his side, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before sprawling out on the carpet next to him with a sigh.

The room is warm and humid and Ed starts to drift off with one hand clasping hers. His eyes snap open when he hears a thunderous crackling, like bubble wrap over a loudspeaker. He exhales slowly once he accepts that it's not gunfire, then frowns and rolls over to peer up at the darkening sky through the window blinds. “Shit, are we missing the fireworks?”

“Nah. It's not dark enough yet for them to start the big show, and that was way too close. Probably just some local pyrotechnic enthusiasts letting one off in their back yard.”

“Right. Well, we've probably made our absence felt by now. What do you want to bet they're gonna cheer when we get downstairs?”

“No bet.” Donna stretches. “I would.”

“Cops are assholes.” Ed sighs and removes the condom.

“On second thought, maybe they won't.” She cocks her head. “Listen.”

He does, and though he can clearly hear Neil Young singing scratchily about his heart of gold, no other sounds of speech or movement drift up from below.

“Where—?” Ed grabs his shorts and tugs them on, then rocks to his feet. He takes his shirt with him and turns it right-side-out as he strides down the hallway to the stairs. He tromps right down to the foot of the stairs and looks around. The house is empty.

“They're all gone?” Donna asks from the landing as she puts her shirt back on.

“And they left my record player on,” Ed snorts and lifts the needle away from the groove before he cuts the power.

“There's a note.” Donna passes Ed to pick it up from the coffee table. “'Thought you'd appreciate the privacy. See you at park, W.' That's nice.”

“That isn't nice, that's Wordy.”

“Come on, Wordy's a sweetheart.”

“Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and I love him, but there's this smug look he gets when he does people favours they didn't ask for.” Ed flashes her a self-satisfied grin. “I actually kinda like it because it's the only way he ever admits to knowing what a saint we all think he is. You know this is only going to postpone the humiliation, right? At least they put away most of the perishable food before they left.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “Are we going to go catch up with them, then?”

“We have to, now. Otherwise they'll decide we abandoned them so we could fuck all night.”

“Would that be a bad thing if it were true?”

Ed frowns at the stacks of dirty dishes in the kitchen. It wouldn't be a bad thing at all, he wants to say, except that it feels like running away. And as much as he wants to hide from his life and to stay right here with Donna, lock all the doors and bunker down until either they run out of food or realtors come to chase them away . . . “No, but I committed to spending Victoria Day with all of my friends, and I'm not ready to backslide into taking them for granted like before.”

She nods, tying her hair back into a ponytail. “Your car or mine?”

Ed shrugs. “It's not that far; why don't we walk?”

Donna pulls on her sport sandals, remarking that it will probably be quicker to walk than to find parking anyway, and Ed holds the door for her as she pulls out her phone to text Jules for the advance party's whereabouts.

About four blocks later, after Ed has caught himself twice whistling the harmonica intro from “Heart of Gold”, Donna grimaces at a passing minivan and asks, “Is Greg going to have a problem with this?”

“What?”

“You said he never invited me back to Team One because he didn't want you and me to get together.”

Ed stops to look at her but she keeps walking so he scurries to keep pace with her, turning around to walk backwards so he can watch her face as he answers. “That was when I was in a marriage that turned out to be more precarious than I wanted to believe. It wasn't about you. Besides, you were already settled on Team Three by then.”

Donna takes hold of his elbow to steer him around an abandoned tricycle, but he stumbles anyway and takes the excuse to stop and put his palms on her shoulders. “Donna, Greg likes you fine. He told me today that he was glad to see you at the house. Our fight was about him thinking he knew me better than I know myself, which maybe sometimes he does, but he was trying to save my marriage to make up for what happened to his own, and he refused to accept that I'd already fucked things all on my own, years before I ever met you.” She doesn't look comforted. “What is it?”

“Did I make this happen?”

“I just told you, I did it myself before I knew you.”

“And before that you said that you couldn't have done it if I hadn't given you the idea.”

Ed sighs and collects his thoughts, then speaks with such calm certainty that any agitated subject would be convinced to drop her weapon. Ed's nearly convinced by it himself. “You didn't push me to do anything I wasn't already ready to do.” He reaches down to take her hand in his. “Okay?”

They hold hands for the rest of the walk, until they get to the park and Ed tries to use Donna as a shield because they _are_ cheering, those scoundrels, they're standing up and applauding, but then the sky explodes in colours and Donna leaves him to sit on a blanket between Jules and Sam and Wordy wraps an arm around his shoulders and Ed stops caring about embarrassment, or doubts, or consequences. Let tomorrow's worries wait until tomorrow. Tonight, he's home.


End file.
